Kobolds Attack!

This week, Kobolds attack! I did something good for my tally of painted miniatures and quickly put some paint on these minute monsters.

Pict 693: Kobolds Attack!

Pict 694: Kobolds

Pict 695: Kobolds

These Kobolds are rather cute but I wasn't that happy with the sculpts (Nolzur's Marvelous Miniatures by Wizkids). The detail is somewhat washed out and that makes you guess sometimes what a particular detail is. I also didn't bother to paint the three versions of the same sculpts differently. I assume that the individual Kobolds will die fast enough in combat so that it wont matter. Nontheless I'm happy to have them in my arsenal to pester low level characters. I also like the little bright red spot I did on the heads that make them stand out and even cuter.

Pict 696: Female Gnome Fighter, Twiggy

Pict 697: Female Gnome Fighter, Twiggy

After that I finished the two gnomes I had started to balance out the Kobolds in the cosmic scales. Twiggy is a cool miniature, but I'm really in love with the female gnome fighter with the crossbow. Even if she should not be used as a hero, I will use her as a bandint or similar to ambush my heroes.

Pict 698: Goblintown Walkways and Plattform

Since I wanted to have some cool scenery for those Kobolds to ambush the Gnomes in the first picture, I also painted these Goblintown walkways and plattform. I had built and primed them at the tail end of last september and even tough they paint up super fast, they lay about on my todo pile for quite some time now.

Pict 699: Hassassin Fiday, Husam Spec-Ops

Pict 700: Hassassin Fiday, Husam Spec-Ops

I finished this Spec-Ops for a tournament last weekend but he seemed to suffer from new model syndrome and didn't really help me. The Fiday was then painted this last week to prepare myself for the next escalation league I'll be a part of and in which I'll be playing the Hassassin Bahram sectorial.

Pict 701: Victor (WIP)

And lastly here is a quick work in progress of the next Critical Role miniature: the insane blackpowder merchant Victor.

Building Osgiliath: Progress with the Putty

This week I was furthering my Osgiliath project, but I also got around to swing the paintbrush around a bit. Nothing completed but some progess nonetheless.

Pict 514: Osgiliath Ruins (WIP - Putty)

Pict 515: Osgiliath Ruins (WIP - Putty)

Here is a first look at what I want to achive with the putty on my ruins. I have gone over pretty much all of the seams and the bigger one on the edge of the building had some structure added to completely hide it. I'm not perfectly happy with how the flagstones on the upper floor came out, but I'll try and blend it in. It was my first time using Miliput and I have to say that I really like the rigid feel of it, now that it cured.

Pict 516: Goblintown Plattform (WIP)

I also mashed together the leftovers wooden floors from the Osgiliath ruins. I cut into the flat edges, put the three pieces together and glued on some remaining stilts from the Goblintown set. Once the plattform has been sprayed I will start to paint it and the walkways.

Pict 517: Defenders of Rohan - Théoden and Éomer (WIP)

Here are some miniatures I'm working on at the moment. They were started along with the mounted versions last week, but I didn't even have the time to get the basic colours down. They now had their first layers and the washes done. As you can see the eyes are in that comicly clownlike stage when I haven't cleaned them up around them with the skin colour.

Pict 518: Vax'ildan - Limited Edition (WIP)

And since I'm a butterfly I couldn't just stay with these projects and thus started work on this Vax'ildan by Steamforged Games. Since I backed their Critical Role Kickstarted but since we will have to wait a little longer I also got this limited Vax'ildan. The sculpt and casting are great, I only had to clean up little bits. I followed the scheme they put out on their website - the washes are down and like with Théoden and Éomer only the highlights are waiting to be done.

Building Osgiliath: More Ruins Built

Continuing with last week's big project, I built the rest of the Osgiliath ruins and some Goblintown bits since I was already doing scenery.

Pict 498: Ruins of Osgiliath (WIP)

Pict 499: Ruins of Osgiliath (WIP)

 As you can see, I got to some more construction work. The next step will be to fill in all the gaps with putty. I started the process after taking these pictures, but it'll take some more time - especially with the Warhammer scenery.

Pict 500: Ruins of Osgiliath, former Witchfate Tor (WIP)

Pict 501: Ruins of Osgiliath, former Witchfate Tor (WIP)

Pict 502: Ruins of Osgiliath, former Witchfate Tor (before/after)

And here is what I was able to do with the top layer of the Witchfate Tor. I like the arches, as they are an element prevalant with Númenorean architecture. First I removed spikes and pinnacles of the top. I then broke through the wall where I wanted the gateways to be. For two of the four wall sections, I only took out the middle wall. The two others will lose all of their walls so that only the arcades will remain - right now they are still good to illustrate the state before my saw got to them. Lastly there were still a whole bunch of skulls and shields that I didn't want want on my Osgiliath ruins. Some of them I could just scrape of, but the others' remains will have to be puttied over.

Pict 503: Goblintown Walkways (WIP)

I also built the last remaining Goblintown walkways I had laying about. I still have more of the posts, so maybe I'll cobble together even more, once I get the board out. They should be a rather fast paintjob with lots of drybrushing after the black basecoat.

Goblintown - done for the day?

This week I'm able to show you a completed version of the Goblintown board, I worked on during the last few weeks.

Pict 297: Goblintown Board

Pict 298: Goblintown Board

Pict 299: The Goblin King's Throne

These pictures show a put together version of the board and a closeup of the Goblinking's Throne. The deatils on the Throne as it comes in the box are great - esspecially the pot of poo under it - but you do have to put in some work into it to make it look good on the rock.
The rest of the board looks nice enough all put togheter - I'm happy with the amount of coverage I got with the plattform and it overall creats a good look. There are a few things I want to cange/add to it. Firstly I'd like to add some ladders to get to the upper levels and up to the Throne. Secondly I want to make the two baseboards more similar. I hadn't put them side by side up untill now and the browns are not quite the same. I'd like to go over the whole thing and darken it down even further and adjust the two while doing that.

Pict 300: Goblintown Ojective Markers

I then painted some obejective markers fitting in with the board. Luckily GW put markers in the Goblintown boxset so that I didn't have to sculpt them. I used the basing scheme of cut up coffeestirrers I also used on my Goblintown army.

With this project (mostly) done I now have kind of a blank slate (as in I don't have to finish anything for a tournament or something), so that I now will be able to start on something random I wanted to do for a long time. Or maybe I'll be able to finish some stuff? I'll decide the next time I sit at my hobbydesk.

Goblintown - Progress with the gaming board

This week(end) I continued building and paiting my new Goblintown board. Other than that, I also finished the crates I first showed in april!

Pict 291: Goblintown Scenery

Pict 292: The Goblin King's Throne

Pict 293: Goblintown Baseboard

As I wrote in the opening sentences, I did make progress with the Goblintown. For the staps fixing the throne to the rock, I used elastic bands and strengthend them with superglue. After they set I smoothed out the transitions with some greenstuff (more on that later!). Once I finished the building part of all the pieces, I started the painting - right now the rockfaces are mostly black, I only put down some brown streaks. As you can see, the ground is a splotchy brown tone. I quite enjoy the variety but I think it needs some darker tones.
Other than the moveable pieces, I also decided to build a baseboard for the pieces. For storage purposes I'll be using two 2'x4' boards and the picture you see above is one of them. It's got a thin layer of  plaster and the same brown treatment as the moveable

Pict 294: Crates

And here are the crates I originally bought for the game Schicksalspfade, but now they are going to populate the Goblintown. After a base of Steel Legion Drab and a light drybrush, I only used differently coloured washes to achive some variation with the wood.

Pict 295: Narzug (mounted) WIP

Pict 296: Narzug (mounted) WIP

And lastly here's a WIP of a conventional miniature: I chopped up a Narzug and stuck him on a Fellwarg. After some filling and resculpting fur with greenstuf, I already started blocking in the colours and putting on a wash.

Goblintown - A big terrain project and continuing with the Noldorim

Following the progress I was able to achive last week, I managed to sit down and concentrate on two projects in particular: A Goblintown gaming board and the continuation with the Noldorim from a few weeks back.

Pict 283: The Goblin King's Throne

Pict 284: The Goblin King's Throne

Pict 285: The Goblin King's Throne

Pict 286: Goblintown Scenery

Pict 287: Goblintown Scenery

Pict 288: Goblintown Scenery

During the last two months I started to think about a 4' by 4' Goblintown board. I already built a 3' by 2' Goblintown board in 2015 but with this new one I want to be more flexible. The experience with building rockfaces did come in handy this time around and I think I was able to improve my technique. The pictures show how far I've gotten during the weekend: the building process is almost done. I might smooth out some of the filler and I'll have to sculpt the staps attaching the throne on the rock.
The one question I'm facing right now is wether I'll build a flat board for the pieces to sit on or simply use a mat. The problem with the former is the space it takes op in my storage. The problem with the latter is that I haven't found one that I really like.

Pict 289: High Elf Warriors

Pict 290: High Elf Warriors

Continuing on with my Rivendell force from a few weeks back, I added ten more High Elf warriors - four with bow and six with spear and shield. Of these I converted one from a captain and four more from warriors with elven blades. I used spare arms with lances from the Rivendell Knights kit for the spears. The conversion is not my best one - the arm's position looks somewhat uncomfortable - but it does the job and adds some variety to the force. Adding in Elrond and his two counsellors Lindir and Erestor, I got myself a 600 point army to use in an upcoming tournament in early december.

Two Armies, but only little progress with the painting

So this week I didn't really have much time to paint. So I only finished one of the Goat Riders before the tournament today...

Pict 144: Goblintown and Allies

Pict 145: Iron Hills Dwarves

So the first two pictures are the armies I took to the tournament. With eight players the tournament was on the smaller side but I still got to meet a few new players. I ended up with one minor vitory, a minor loss and a major loss and thus made fith place. I happy with the result, learned something and will return to the next one with more experience and will strive for more!

Pict 146: Iron Hills Goat Rider

And here is the one miniature I finished this week. As with the one last week the Goat is what really takes time and thus the other four are finished except for the Goats. I will try and finish them during the next week, but the priority is with some more critters and monsters for DnD, because I will host a game on saturday.

Pict 147: Fox (WIP)

And lastly: Here's a work in progress for one of the aforementioned critters. I started work on a fox, a badger, a bat and a frog to give the druid in the party some options to turn into animals. I want to paint some more goblinoids to drop onto the players as they explore an overtaken elven ruin.